Sean Chercover - The Trinity Game

He never thought of his father without recalling that conversation. And he always thought his father’s shame had been misplaced. Shame for hiding his race or shame for the race itself, either way, it was meaningless to Trinity.

What mattered was the poverty. That was shameful.

She came to him in his sleep, in a peaceful dream. Came to him like an ebony Yoruba goddess, in the shade of the big magnolia, where he lay on a bed of oystershell gravel.

“Does it hurt?” she said.

“Not at all.”

“It will.”

He wanted to believe her. Wanted to square up his account, pay the full price of his sins, and be washed clean.

But he was afraid to die.

“Everybody dies, Tim,” she said.

So she can read my thoughts…

“It goes both ways,” she said, and he realized that her mouth had not moved.

Holy crap. Telepathy. Then it hit him all at once. I got it! I got it! You’re God…

Her smile was full of pity. “Yes, but so are you. I’m God, you’re God, Danny’s God, and the man who audits your taxes for the IRS is God. Everyone is God. I hope you will earn that knowledge before you’re done.”

You almost had me, until you included the tax guy…

“You need to take this seriously. Something bad is going to happen tomorrow. Look at me, Tim.”

So he sat up and looked…and liked what he saw. A black woman—at least as black as he was white—her features spinning tales of North Africa. High forehead, almond eyes, prominent cheekbones, full lips, sharp chin. Skin dark and smooth. Emerald-green eyes. Thin frame, delicate shoulders, voluptuous swelling at the breasts and hips. She wore a fire-red head wrap and a light summer dress of the same color. Around her neck a large silver crucifix and about a hundred beaded necklaces. Around her wrists, seven bracelets, cowrie shells strung on leather.

“I have much to teach you,” she said, “but your life is on the line. Stay alive tomorrow, and come to me.”

I don’t know how to find you…

“You will. Remember—there’s only one God, everything else is metaphor.”

But you said everyone was God…

“Both are true.” She knelt beside him, took his face in her hands, kissed him softly on the lips. “Good luck.”

And she was gone.

Julia had promised Herb she’d play well with others and promised herself she’d hold her tongue. But it had been a very long day, and she was working with CNN, not for them, and there were things that needed to be said.

So she said them.

And Kathryn Reynolds listened. A network news veteran in her late fifties, Reynolds was one put-together black woman. She’d been at work since eight that morning, and it was now creeping up on eleven p.m., but she somehow looked like she’d just arrived. Her suit was crisp, her makeup perfect, her long nails bright red and unchipped. Last time Julia visited the bathroom, she’d been more than a little startled by the rumpled, exhausted woman staring back from the mirror. The mirror-Julia had a hopelessly wrinkled jacket, flyaway hair, and dark circles starting to show beneath her eyes.

If Reynolds was insulted by Julia’s rant, she didn’t wince. She just moved her Peabody Awards—all three of them—from the edge of her desk to the center. Followed by the Emmy. Then she smiled, as one does at a slow child.

“Newspapers can afford to be selective.” Gold hoops danced below her earlobes as she shook her head. “Scratch that—they can’t, unless they want the blogosphere to go on eating their lunch.” She slid her awards back to the side of the desk. “Here, we’ve accepted the existence of the Internet, the twenty-four-hour news cycle.” Her red fingernails swept across the glass wall separating her office from the CNN newsroom bullpen…and the anchor desk, green-screens, lights, cameras, boom mics, and monitors everywhere you looked. “Gotta feed the beast. Would that it were different, but...” She shrugged.

“I get that,” said Julia, “but at some point, we end up shifting focus to the freak show on the fringes of the story. And everybody loves a freak show. Then we start reporting the freak shows, even when there’s no real story attached.”

“I agree with you, the world would be better served if we ignored the freak shows, but we simply no longer live in that world.” The news producer closed the blinds across the glass wall, shutting out the newsroom, pulled a bottle of Southern Comfort out of the credenza, poured a couple ounces into her coffee. “Days like today, the coffee around here could stand improvement.”

Julia held her mug forward. “Much obliged.” The women smiled at each other, for real this time. They sipped the sweet, boozy coffee.

“Because of women like me,” said Kathryn Reynolds, “women like you are where you are. Not saying you haven’t had to deal with your share of assholes. But you should’ve seen the bullshit I had to wade through on my way up. You’d have quit the business. So shut up a minute and hear me.”

It was all said with good humor, and measured respect. A wave of self-awareness washed over Julia, and she saw herself from the other side of the desk and felt embarrassed all over again.

“I read your series on Katrina. You’re a good reporter, and you’ve been blessed with serious writing chops. But you need to think about the road ahead. You could make the jump to television.” She sipped her coffee. “Some networks, you compromise every principle of your calling...”

Every principle of your calling. The words gave Julia a start. She’d always felt pretentious when she admitted to herself that her job did feel like a calling, and she never gave the feeling voice. It’s the feeling of having been put on this earth for a specific purpose. The genesis of which can be found in the neurochemistry of the human brain, but it’s easy to see how people came to invent a soul, separate from the body. It’s a spiritual feeling, even if there is no spirit.

“…At this network, you only make one compromise: you have to lower the bar of what constitutes newsworthiness. We need the eyeballs; it’s the only way we can make the margins that our Wall Street overseers demand. Understand? See, we’re fighting for the survival of journalism; the ‘Platonic Ideal’ isn’t even on the table. And if you don’t bend, you break. You gotta stay in the game, and we only bend that one thing here. You keep the rest of your ethics intact, and you can still do stories in depth when you can justify them. Some of us have managed it before you. And for that, you’re welcome.”

“Thank you,” said Julia. “I appreciate the advice.”

“I knew I was gonna like you, once we got that chip off your shoulder,” said Kathryn Reynolds. “I want you to think about what I said. The future ain’t what it used to be, but it’s coming right at us, regardless.” She nodded, putting the subject to rest. “As for Trinity, I don’t tell you what to put in your pieces for the Picayune, so don’t tell me what isn’t news for CNN.”

“Deal,” said Julia.

They clinked mugs and drank to it, Julia now glad Herb had made the deal with CNN. She could learn from this woman.

Kathryn Reynolds plucked a remote off her desktop, flicked the television on, muted it. Soledad O’Brien was doing a stand-up in front of Trinity’s Lakeview mansion. Blue tarpaulin covered the roof of the main building, while the garage had a new metal roof. The front yard was mounds of dirt, and a tractor stood in the driveway.